‘We Believe in Israel’: Conference trolled by anti-Semites on Facebook

Organizers of the ‘We Believe in Israel 2015’ conference taking places in London on March 22 are “shocked” by a flood of anti-Semitic abuse on their Facebook page. This follows efforts to halt a separate event questioning Israel’s right to exist.

The pro-Israel event,
“open to anyone who supports the right of Israel to live in
peace and security,” drew a flurry of Facebook posts, with
one user branding Israelis “child killers.”

“It actually shows exactly why we need a major conference
like this to act as a springboard for a united pro-Israel fight
back in the UK,” We Believe in Israel director Luke Akehurst
told The Jewish Chronicle.

One anti-Semitic Facebook post described the event as “load
of sh**,” adding the only reason the Jewish haven’t been
“wiped out” is “because half of the American defense
secretaries are Jewish.”

“You are the worst of the worst. Every Palestinian you have
killed, I pray to Allah you Zionists pigs never get
forgiven,” another Facebook user added.

Evoking the mass persecution and extermination of the Jewish
people during the Holocaust, one user posted: “Nazis did well
to protect themselves too against the Jews but shame they didn’t
go all the way.”

Mick Davis, chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council told The
Jewish News Online the We Believe in Israel conference is
“the kind of enabling initiative our community needs” to
fight anti-Semitism.

“We need to address as a community our need for a forum to
discuss what support for Israel actually means to its supporters
and how we can translate that support into effective and
legitimate action,” Davis told the paper.

He said the conference is for “the pro-Israel community to
come together, regardless of their political affiliations.”

However, the organizers have been accused of “scrutinizing
the political beliefs of those attending.”

Hilary Aked, freelance journalist and PhD student at the
University of Bath researching the pro-Israel lobby in the UK,
was denied entry to the conference.

In a blog on The Electronic Intifada, she said: “I signed up
to attend making no attempt to conceal my identity.”

Those behind the event “wrote to me to say my application to
attend had not been accepted,” she said. The refusal letter
cited her work on “Spinwatch, in particular your report on
BICOM” – British Israeli Communications & Research
Centre.

Aked said it is “not surprising” an organization
defending Israel’s “ongoing dispossession and oppression of the
Palestinians would ban critics from its events.”

Israel’s right to exist

The We Believe in Israel conference comes ahead of a University
of Southampton academic forum questioning Israel’s right to exist
under international law.

The three-day conference, titled “International Law and the
State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and
Exceptionalism” is scheduled to take place April 17-19.

The event has been condemned by many in the Jewish community,
with over 3,000 people signing a petition against it. Jewish
leaders said it “surpasses the unacceptable.”

In a letter to the university, Jewish leaders accused
Southampton’s Law School of “being used as an academic
platform to advance, not just to legitimate, Palestinian national
rights.”

“What other state in the global community of nations –
democratic or tyrannical – is ever subjected to such a critique?
The conference causes us great concern and distress.

It will undoubtedly trouble greatly the members of the UK
Jewish community,” the leaders said.

They urged the university to reconsider holding the event.

A spokesperson for the University of Southampton defended the
right of academics to explore “controversial issues.”

“The conference aims to examine the role international law
can play in political struggles and to act as a platform for
scholarly debate, welcoming academic contributions from a range
of perspectives,” the spokesperson said.